sigh...
so for three years, off and on, I have made my way into the online dating world and attempted to find that which eludes me - enjoyable intimate masculine company.
Don't get me wrong, I like men, but from arms length. They often smell good, look good, and are fun to be around. But step into the dating world and you are faced with reality.
Men are quite simply motivated by their appendages.
I'm not unattractive. I'm not every man's cup of tea, but I do all right. I look young for my age and that seems to be particularly appealing. Online, I make sure I am polite, I try to present well (nice pics, but realistic ones taken within the last year), I make sure that my profile is truthful. Yet I seem to attract fat men, who are generally living with their parents, and are quite often bald/balding. Their pictures often don't match the real person. By the time they are in their mid 30's, these men seem to be experiencing the first part of their mid life crisis. The ones I meet have experienced the failure of marriage, often have a child or two they see on alternate weekends, may or may not have a steady job. Their conversation revolves around their failed relationships and access issues, although usually I manage to steer into another direction with some well placed questions, or a total subject change.
I'm not completely adverse to all of this. I can appreciate what it is to experience a poor relationship, but I will be forever thankful that my ex and I communicate well enough and are flexible enough in our schedules that access issues have never occurred. I'm also not a total bitch and have always considered it important that daddy spends time with his kids. I have always preferred to rent than live with my mother, because I prefer my independence over 'running home to mummy'. I have always tried to be working, because something is better than nothing. I don't sit there and moan about my relationship because that's nobody's business but mine and my ex's.
I'm not skinny, but I'm working on it and I dress appropriately for my size (except at derby lol). I don't make 'model style' efforts in my appearance - no fake nails/hair/eye colour/tan. I wear very little make up, I don't fuss over my hair. I present my self in person as the person that you will see most days. Why pretend? I'm not a party person, I rarely drink, I don't smoke or do drugs. I have difficulties with large crowds and dislike being in unfamiliar places where getting lost is likely. I'm not particularly interested in sports, or what's on television. I'd rather read a book. In conversation, I am attentive, interested, curious. I want to know this person who I have agreed to meet. I want to see if there are things we have in common that can create the basis for a future relationship. So, Mr, don't tell me you go to the gym, or bush walk, or camp, if you did it once six months ago. That's not you. That is an image you have chosen to present online, in the hope it will attract a woman. Don't use a photo that is 3 - 6 years old, because it is OBVIOUS the first time we meet. Be interested in what I have to say, instead of asking token questions because you know that is what is expected of you. Appreciate the fact that I have children and cannot go out at the drop of a hat.
I don't want to be wined and dined. I want to DO something! I want to be intrigued, and entertained.
I don't want to meet you for a drink, and have you hit on me as we go our separate ways, even when I've indicated that my kids are at home waiting for me. When I say I am not much of a drinker, I'd like you to listen and NOT ask me out for drinks again the next night. I don't want to meet you for a coffee and have you decide that that entitles you to send me slightly 'sexy' texts, and when I ask you to stop because I barely know you, you say you were only joking and it's just your humour...and you don't stop. I don't want to have a nice first evening with you (conversation and a few drinks), go our separate ways, then have you text me about how lonely you are and could I come over tomorrow night to keep you company. When I suggest that dinner would be nice, I don't want you to write back and suggest pizza and drinks...in your hotel room. I don't want to have you keep asking me if I am seeing someone else, when you have no claim to me.
When you boil it right down...I'm looking for the impossible. An intelligent man who I find attractive, who smells nice, dresses tidily. A man who is interested and interesting. A man who is attentive without being clingy, who is comfortable with his own company. A man who will encourage me out of my comfort zone with activities, but who will support me when I can only see black around me.
Honestly, I don't think I am capable of having a relationship with someone. I am intolerant and bitchy, over critical and dismissive. I have a short attention span, and actually get bored on dates because it's just the same old same old. I also get bored with the texting, because it's the same old same old. It all boils down to sex, and I get tired of it. I sigh! I am disappointed to be proven right when that first text comes through within a day or two of our first meet. The man I dated last yr, the one that ended in Nov, was the closest I had come to finding something that could work. However, he was physically old and uninterested in treating life as an adventure. Also, he embarrassed me in public and that goes down like a tonne of bricks.
sigh. The words 'Forever Alone' keep echoing in my head.
